About Me

Angel Docampo

GNU/Linux Engineer

Operative Systems

There is another way...

My first PC (an Amstrad PC 1512) came with a crappy version of MS DOS. After a while of using it, I
decided it didn't satified my needs, and began to investigate for alternatives in the monthly journals.
That's how I met DRDOS. It was far more powerful and let me do more with the same. I realized then there are always more than
the way companies pretend you to use a computer.

Years later, tired of so many BSOD of the Windows 95, I discovered another interesting operative system
called "SuSE", and despite the ugliness of the desktop, I did found it very fun, and I started to learn just for curiosity
which today is my everyday job.

Thanks to Linux, you learn something new every day, every task can be accomplished in a myriad of ways,
and always there is a better way to do everything. Freedom of choice: one of the mantras of GNU means this. Users of other OSes
can see this overwhelming and perhaps chaotic, but I love to learn and thanks to the open source, we can do with the computers
what we want, not what companies want us to do.

Experience has teach to me that closed operative systems slaves its users with heavy chains. They can be
in fact great tools to make everything, but in the end, users are limited to what the real owners of the OS -the company who created it-
designed for it. That's is the reason why since early 2000 I promote the use of GNU/Linux and open source tools to everyone who wants
to hear me.

Service Providers

It's all about choices

Internet providers, email providers, streaming providers, cloud providers... there are a lot of services we
have at our reach and we not only should select those which price is low, but also who cares about our privacy, the neutrality
and democracy. A fair provider who doesn't play dirty with us. Information of the market, both commercial and community, will empower
us, so I strive to be up to date.

Of course, yet I'm still using commercial providers who are evil (wink wink, nudge nudge), I always search for
alternatives, so, since some years ago, I'm using duckduckgo as my main search engine,
nextcloud as my cloud provider, and plex (and Netflix)
as my streaming provider, to name a few, and a plenty of open source desktop and mobile apps which connect to my own hosted services.
I'm now in the process to migrate from gmail to my own email/groupware server to be completely free from any company.

I finally realized that no other provider will care the most for me and my people than myself, so after
finding a good ISP provider, I'm hosting all my needed services at home.

Privacy

Yes, it matters

General user is still pretty illiterate regarding computing, and too innocent regarding how
big Internet giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others offers their services for free. They can't even imagine
how expensive is to build and maintain all those datacenters, they ignore the meaning of the data mining or big data
terms, and how evil can their consecuences be. And when someone explains to them that those companies doesn't offer their
services for free, but selling their private data to others or letting goverments know their private habits, the
usual reply is "I don't have anything to hide".

I think we, the privacy and freedom advocates need to educate all people we can. Teaching others how
to avoid services who doesn't respect our privacy, safely browsing the Internet lefting a smaller footprint, using the
tools who let us be more free and difficults the surveillance done by companies and governments. It's not about wearing
a tin-foil hat, it's about don't be treated as just a number, being a suspect for our goverment or being spammed with
advertising. If we want to avoid that, we must pass unnoticed.

That can be the corner stone to have a secure and private operative system like GNU/Linux and host your own
services with open source tools. This, besides to add a very strong privacy layer, it also adds a security layer. Think about all
those big companies being hacked hundreds of thousands of credentials of their users. Hackers targets big companies, not single
users, the former is far more profitable and renownable.

Security

Secure your data

Security is another thing users relies on the providers. We already have seen how hackers have attacked
big companies like Yahoo, Sony, Facebook and many others. When users
and companies relies on third party companies to have their data, they must be aware that data is out of their control. On the
other hand, hackers tries to attack to everyone, but they target mainly to big companies, their fruit is far more profitable than
attacking a single user and the effort attacking both, with the proper protection tools, can be comparable.

I spent the last decade or so educating everyone I can to regain their data back. Nowadays there are plenty
of open source tools, properly secured, feature rich, and in most cases, just better than any commercial service. So, adding a security
layer to your digial life is pretty straight forward. Adding SSL to your own hosted services, 2FA to the logons, using strong random passwords on every
website we browse or encrypting your data is very easy, we all should do it.

I love to help anyone who wants to secure their digital life. I use myself many services and I have been hacked only
once. A web page hosted on a known ISP back in 2003. Since then, I began the way to host myself everything and control all security mechanisms
by myself. Despite I'm not a security professional and of course I can be hacked, I never have been compromissed again.

Net Neutrality

Fight against injustice

We see how companies tries to obtain the most profit when the good is scarce, it happens right now on Africa,
where a bottle of water costs almost 1$ when the very same bottle costs on Europe around 30cts.
sex, religion, or whatever. Societies must fight against inequality and wealth can not be above the rights of people.

Internet is not just a entertaiment or a luxury. It's becoming a powerful knowledge tool and many people spend
a lot of hours studying and learning thanks to it. In poor countries can be crucial to save people travel many kilometers every
day to get some studies and flee from poverty. A classroom or library with a decent Internet connection and some old computers can
help greatly to many people there. But poor countries aren't the only target. Here in western countries, ISP are trying to force
users to pay extras for contents we already pay, making even more profitable their business. What about if you had to pay a plus in
your Internet connection to access streaming services you are already paying like Netflix, Hulu or Spotify?

Internet was conceived as a tool for humankind, not as a business, and although those two terms aren't mutually
exclusive, savage capitalism, as always, is trying to deform whatever it touches. That's why we need to unite us and fight for the
Net Neutrality, by informing others, making campaings or forcing our politicians not to be seduced by powerful telecom companies, and
make laws which protects the people.

Net Censorship

Nothing to censor

Internet began as an academic effort to share knowledge and ideas. On the late 70's and 80's most people didn't
aware of it yet, on the 90's only a few visionaires started their business and in the 2000's Internet exploded.

Slowly and silently, Internet has become the next big tool, comparable with the fire handling or the wheel. Today
everyone in the World knows what Internet is and half the total of the world population has access to it, sharing their knowledge, their ideas
and their concerns. That made people buy goods easyly, consume online products, share their private life and why not, organize against some
irregularities.

That latest is an inconvenience for all governments. They were used to control all the communication medias and the new player
let them misplaced. Authoritarian governments were the first to practice what they always did: censoring what they don't want people to see.
The governments supossedly democratic couldn't do it so openly, so they are trying to censor Internet with any excuse, beign terrorism the most
used. Did you remember before 9/11? The word terror was just only a word in the dictionary, nowadays you cannot see any news bulletin without
that word. A desperate move on the ruling class to gain the control on what we read and see, to take us all on the right path. Theirs path.

Internet must remain uncensored or it won't resist. There are now alternatives, the tor or i2p networks can do the
job done, but it's necessary people understands and worries about why their government needs so bad to control what is published on the Internet
and even what are they willing to do to get it. Understand it and stop it. We need a open Internet, uncensored and under control of the people,
that's how it was coinceived and how it has progressed until it has become the new humanity big propeller.

Qbo Robot

I belong to that generation who grew up reading sci-fy novels which told us that we will be able to fly in our cars,
trip to Mars, teleport ourselves to another places and live surrounded by robots. I spent my childhood dreaming of that wonderful future and
despite that future has come without none of those genius, I strongly believe that day is getting closer.

When I discovered Qbo Robot on Indiegogo's site, I backed the project immediatly. That open source robot was a dream come
true. With a lot of effort I assembled all the pieces together, and bought a custom hardware and started to play with ROS
, a open source framework for writing robot software.

Unfortunately, the robot itself was quite expensive and it didn't reached the grand public for its complexity
and effort to make it work easily. Just some enthusiast around the world and several universities engaged on it. My lack of free time, the pronunciated
learning curve, the poor support from the creators, and the tiny community, forced me to let the project aside at that time.

On December 2017, another version of the Qbo Robot was succesfully launched on the crowdfunding platforms, this time
was a 90% cheaper and end user oriented. I'm waiting for the release of the newer version of the software to resume the project. Now I'm more
confortable programming in python and I have more ideas in integrating the robot with my smart home system.

Mycroft AI

Let's face it, AI assistants are a great concept. Is one of those things I grew up thinking I will have on year 2000.
Big companies are improving theirs AIs greatly lately, but I don't want to use any of them. If you're reading this, you already know what I
think about privacy and security and how big companies treat us regarding these subjects.

Another crowfunded project caught my attention. Mycroft AI is an open source AI now under heavy development, but although it's
still young, it has a great potential. Is fun to learn to code its skills and they are launching their second crowdfunding campaing. Its
community user and developer base is huge and very helpful.

They released a desktop client, a software that can be installed on any GNU/Linux or a rpi, and eventually they will
release the mobile and other desktops clients as well. On the crowdfunding campaings, they offered Mark I (and now Mark II), a fully working hardware
with the software completely working.

There I'm contributing by translating the skills into spanish and I'm going to develop a skill capable to connect to your
Home Assistant and let you control your smart home devices via your voice. I will put the code on github once I have something to share.

Z-Wave

Making your home a better place to live

In my search for a house of the future, I did choose zwave as the protocol. It has its pros and cons, but as their main code
was released to the public on 2016, I did bet for that protocol instead WiFi, Blutooth, Zigbee or other protocols which I consider worse. As zwave
devices are quite expensive, I wanted to invest in a ready to use product, and I bought a kit which is functional. The problem comes when I want to
adapt my others projects to it. My propietary hub doesn't have any API or method to develop anything. So I need to replace the hub and rehuse the zwave devices.

I'm in the middle of making a open source zwave hub, based on Home Assistant.
With the SoC PINE64 and a Razberry CPIO connector, I'm on the work to make the devices working on it.

Once I have the Open Source hub fully functional, I will proceed to make Mycroft AI and Qbo Robot be able to control the zwave devices
and automations of my house. I have fun for years with those toys!

Hardware

First things first

The first thing I did realize was I need to have a reliable yet affordable piece of hardware in my own home
to be able to host anything I want. So, after reviewing multitude of options, I decided HP Microserver G8 was the perfect
match for my needs.

I did bought it under 200€, and I upgraded it after a year with a better CPU and a bit more RAM. In total, I've
spent less than 600€ on a enterprise-grade server with a xeon processor, 16GB RAM and 12TB on a RAID5 with a very low power consumption.
As some friends also bought the same hardware, I'm syncing all the sensible data with them if someday one of us suffers a disaster at home
like a fire or being robbed.

To maximize all the system resources, I dockerized all services, excepting some of them I had to fully virtualize through KVM.
All data synced with friend's NAS, I created a encrypted LVM volume where friends can store their sensible data, and they do the same on theirs NAS.
We also have a load balancer of some services we all have, so If my NAS is under maintenance or missing, all services are still up.

Nextcloud

This incredible open source solution can cover almost all the needs anyone can wait for the typical cloud
providers: cloud storage, desktop and mobile folders sync, calendar, tasks and contacts sync, password managers for mobile and
desktop browsers, notes taking and sync, online and collaborative editors, spreadsheet and presentations, news reader server
for desktop and mobile devices as well as web client, email web clients to connect to an IMAP server, OPDS catalog and EPUB
reader, music and online radio web clients, chat and VoIP calls and mettings through your own server... and the applications
catalog doesn't stop growing!

Besides it has addons for Thunderbird and Outlook to put a link instead of an attachment in the
email client, supports 2FA and OTP protocols to secure the login, restrictions to brute force attemps to login, many ways to
connect (OpenID, LDAP, SSO, SAML, SQL, Discourse, etc).

On the desktop, I have the Nextcloud client. I installed Passman for Firefox and Chrome and on Thundebird, I
configured the CardDav and
CalDav client to point to the
Nexcloud Contacts and Calendar apps repectively, besides, I've installed
Nextcloud for Filelink to add links instead large
attachments on my emails. Finally, I created an entry on my file manager to access to all the user data though
WebDav.

The Nextcloud instance is containerized with Docker, accessing the NAS filesystem natively, with the configuration
stored on the NAS RAID5 itself and an apache reverse proxy, also dockerized, publish the service and it's in charge to handle and renew the
Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. The Nextcloud administrator account needs to authenticate through TOTP. On android I use
FreeOTP.

Plex

The best media streaming server

When we come to media streaming, we need to speak mandatorily of Plex. Despite Plex is a commercial product, it strongly relies on a multitude of open source tools and libraries.
Its free version is pretty awesome and I'm considering to pay a lifetime support sometime just to support them for their awesome
work.

It has clients for desktop, mobile devices, web interface and as a Kodi addon, besides SmartTV apps. It can also
cast to another Plex client or Chromecast, you can share you libraries with friends and download any video to view it offline. It
remember the viewing time to continue watching later from that moment and downloads posters, metadata and subtitles automatically from
the Internet. It can also play nicely music playlist and media galleries.

I bought the Plex
android app and usually cast the videos to one of my Chromecast, but when I go on holidays or travel somewhere, I first download what
I want to see from the web interface from my laptop or mobile device. Premium users can do it more confortably directly from the Plex app.

Plex lies in another Docker container, accessing the NAS filesystem directly and with its configuration stored
outside the container on the NAS itself. Just the plex port is NATed to the host and published to the Internet.

Calibre

For all your reading needs

The swiss knife to e-book readers is called Calibre. It can handle virtually all e-book formats and convert them
to any other format. It can also send it to any device. Its library manager can handle hundreds of thousands of books, and can find
the metadata and posters and even remove DRM from books.

I wanted to access my library from anywhere, jusk like I used to do with Google Books. There is a cool calibre
web front end called Calibre Web besides the official Calibre
headless mode, which I selected for its clean interface and its simplicity

With Calibre Web, I can browse, read, updload, remove, or add metadata of any book on my library. It supports users, so
I can create accounts for my family and friends with custom rights. It can convert to MOBI any EPUB and send it to the user's Kindle and
EPUBS can be directly readed from the Web GUI epub reader. Besides that, its a OPSD catalog, so any mobile app with OPDS catalog support can
connect with the user's credentials and download any book he/she has access. On Android I'm using the open source
FBdroid, with the TTS plugin I can heard any novel
if I have my hands on other things!

Just like my other services, a docker of Calibre web with no ports exposed has access to the NAS, where the library and its
configuration lies, and the docker apache reverse proxy publishes the service and is the responsible for regenerating the SSL certificates.

Sickrage

Feeding Plex Media Server!

Here in Spain we have Netflix -which I love-, Amazon Prime video -which I have mixed feelings because I use
chromecast and Amazon forces to us to use its FireStick, but I love their TV Shows- and recently appeared HBO and Sky with a very
poor catalog. Besides that, spanish companies have the bad habit to buy a season of a TV Show, years later of its release
and many times, they doesn't buy a second season or wait endless years to buy and dub another season.

So, as legislation in Spain lets do it whilst there is no economical revenue, and we can't access to many titles,
and perhaps we never will, I donwload some TV shows I'm unable to view in my country. I also download Amazon TV Shows to see them
through the chromecast, yet I could see them on the smart phone...

With sickrage, once configured, we can search for a TV show and it searches on NZB and torrent sites and auto
download them on the TV Shows folder of Plex. Furthermore, you also get noticed when a new episode is released and downloaded
through Telegram and magically appears once downloaded on the Plex Library. It can also fetch the subtitles, just like Plex does.

On Android, there is a open source app called ShowsRage
which connects to the SickRage server and can add new shows -for example, when you are on the bar with a friend and he tells you he
started a new amazing TV Show- and you quickly add it and forget about it.

Another docker is running this service, with direct access to the NAS filesystem, to store the shows and its configuration. The reverse proxy
publishes the service through HTTPS with the LestEncrypt certs.

OpenVPN + Tor Gateway

Browse anonymously and securely

To browse more anonymously and securely, there are some options out there. The usual is to pay for a reliable
VPN provider who doesn't store any logs, preferably an European or South American provider and configure your devices through it.
Tor network is another option, which is pretty secure but slow compared with the VPN solution. Using both adds a extra anonymity
and security layer by encrypting everything twice and letting your ISP and VPN providers in the dark. So, with this technique, I
can use my services at full speed while my browsing is yet very fast, encrypted and anonymous and the other tasks are slow, but I
don't mind, as I used them occasionally.

I selected a mix of all the options. My published services are going directly to Internet through my ISP. All
my devices uses the VPN provider I choosed which is pretty fast and anonymous, and offers double
VPN encryption, and my dark services are going to the Internet through a Tor + VPN service, so my ISP only see I'm connecting
to Tor, but when I stablish the P2P connection, I'm using the VPN address, on the other hand, my VPN provider sees the Tor output IP
address.

Instead of buying a router capable of act as a VPN Gateway, I enjoyed creating a GNU/Linux gateway just for the
fun. And it's great. I have a KVM virtual machine on the NAS which connects to my VPN provider and a docker container which is a
Tor Gateway, which connnects itself to the VPN on the VM. I also set up a DHCP server on a docker container (because my ISP's router)
is horrible and almost unconfigurable, and created some network segments to make the mobile devices and computers at home to use as
default gateway the VPN Gateway, the published services like Nextcloud still uses the default router's gateway and the P2P services
like Torrent or NBZ are using the Tor Gateway.

Finally, I'd set up another OpenVPN Server container which routes all incoming connections through my VPN server
to my VPN provider, so I can connect from outside usign my own VPN server, or let a friend to try browsing anonymously through my own
infraestructure ;)

Watching TV Shows

The not-so-new addiction

Back in 2003 I didn't watch anything on TV. Movies were awful and TV was even worse. So I spent my free time reading
, playing role play games with my friends, or driking some beers with them. One day, but, a friend of me downloaded Battlestar Galactica.
Several friends went to his home each week just to see the serie. That began an addiction longly forgotten (since the days of my childhood),
and it started an habit that I still do today. It seems that online platforms like Netflix and others have boosted this and nowadays we're
living a kind of TV Shows-mania: there are too much for us to see and many of them are pure crap, but there are many that are simply jewels.

I love sci-fy, fantasy and thriller TV Shows. I love to see them with my wife or my friends, yet I see the freakiest ones
by myself. I'm an avid consumer of them and I'm subscribed to on-demand sites like Netflix or Amazon video for their quality TV Shows. I always find
time to see them: on the subway, before sleeping, while eating at work...

Reading

A passion from always

I can't remember when I learned to read. Since I was a child I loved to read. I remeber I began to read all the few books present
on my parent's house - including the Old and New Testament - some spanish classical works, a large encyclopedia, and the Reader's
Digest. I know that is a strange and awful reading, but I was just starting and I was very avid to read... anything.

Years later, when I was 8, my cousin left me his copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. That work let me enter
into a wonderful world full of magic. I began to play roleplay games at 10, after having readed The Lord of the Rings twice and The
Silmarilion four times.

Fantasy opened the hunger for reading about another worlds, and Sci-fy widened and filled that hunger for travel
those worlds and knowing the fascinating ideas of their creators. I've readed hundreds of books, being fantasy, sci-fy, history and thrillers my
favourites genres.

Despite the great appreciation, respect and recognition that I have for Tolkien, I'm enjoying the new generation of
fantasy writers: Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks, Joe Abercrombie or Steven Erikson and the beloved Sir Terry Pratchett (R.I.P.). All these
not-so-young-already writers have opened a new era in fantasy works. I'm living at late of my 30's, a reborn of a genre longly gloomed for cheap
copies of the Tolkien's works. These new writers are even taking the genre to the Big Screen and TV Shows, which I'm not pretty sure if I like
it or not.

Writing

Plant a tree, have a child and...

Said a wise that every man will be remembered for his works. In something that survives him, in something that will last after
his death.

I have already planted a lemon tree, but living in a big city and not being good at planting anything, I doubt that tree will last
me. Most probably one day I will have a child with my beloved couple, who is the best person I know, the strongest woman on Earth
and the joy of my life. But that day hasn't come yet, so as I love to read those awesome novels which transport me to another worlds,
as couldn't be otherwise I decided to start writing.

I wrote many histories before, but merely to set up a world for my roleplay games sessions. I did loved to create a world, an idea, a story
for my players to interact with. But recently I imagined a story, fragments of scattered and unconnected ideas I dind't see in any TV Show or
readed in any novel. And I started to write them down on a notebook.

After starting the first phrase many times, I did realized that writing paragraph after paragraph was in fact pretty easy. When the first
chapter was completed, I noticed that I had wrote wasn't any of the ideas I wrote on that notebook. Anyway, I liked the written so I began
to modify those notes to adapt them to the chapter.

I'm slow at writting it. I do many things each and every day and weeks can pass between write and write. Perhaps it will never see the
light, or if some day is published, most probably nobody will read it. But you know what? I don't have the need to be a well-known writer
nor live by my works. I just enjoy a lot by doing it.

About me

Hello

I'm a computer, robotics, and AI enthusiast who born and lives in Barcelona. I have been rummaging with computers since I was 8 years old,
starting with the ancient cassete Amstrad CPC 464. I felt in love at once. I began studying electronics, computing and programming early
in the 90's and shortly after just discovered GNU/Linux, which not only added fun to computing, but the freshen concept of sharing of knwoledge.

I am completely convinced that Open Source is contributing to mankind advancing on its next step: the Age of Knowledge. I have spent
years evangelizing the use of free software, from writing blogs to create non-profits and events. I've helped many clients to unbound the chains
from propietary products and now they are free and empowered to do whatever they want.

Now, I'm concentrated on robotics and AI, in some years, the World will be moved by robots, and now only the big companies have the
power, they steal our privacy to improve their products. The future deserves a free and open source AI for everyone to evolve equally. It's a long way,
but heck! I love it!

Skills

OS

Expertise in GNU/Linux and Windows

Virtual

Experience in virtualization and containerization

Clusters

HPCs, Storage and Virtualization clusters

Planning

Study the needs and apply the right tools

GNU/Linux

85%

Virtualization

75%

Clustering

75%

Network

60%

Programming

40%

Orchestration

35%

It is impossible to mention all the skills I have acquired over the years. I can only show a small set of interesting categories that include a myriad of tools.

Education

2006-2007

Bachelor's Degree

Universtitat Autònoma de Barcelona

I completed 2/3 of the career, but sadly, I had to left my Bs in CS unfinished. A pending task hopefully some day I will finish

2004-2006

Bachelor's Degree

Universtitat Rovira i Virgili

I've started the university career on this one, luckily, after two years, I got a place on UAB, so I saved 200Km/day.

2002-2004

Associate's Degree

IES La Guineueta

I got here my Associate's Degree on Application Development, althoug nowadays I do not develop actively, I fear not the code!

1992-2000

Electronics Degree

IFP La Guineueta

This was the starting point to everything I love today, and let me how machines works know at low level.

Online courses

I've studied some interesting online courses, here there is a small list

2013-2016

2016 Linux Foundation Certified SysAdmin (Linux Foundation)

2015 Machine Learning (Coursera)

2014 Programming for Everybody (Python) (Coursera)

2013 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (Standford)

Experience

2011-today

DLTec

GNU/Linux Sr Administrator

Open Source Hyperconvergence, mid to large-scale migrations, or any open source solution adapted to our clients

2007-2011

Grupo Pacífico

Systems Administrator

I was the one in charge of all the IT and Telecom systems of the entire group, with 6 offices in all Spain and 150 employees

2005-2007

Barcelona On-Line

Windows Administrator

System Administrator while studying the career on this booking and tourism portal giving support to the office and platform

2003-2004

Diurnus

IT Specialist

Field technician, giving in situ support both to users and server infraestructure

2001-2003

Polyconcept

T-SQL Developer

Development of a custom application in .NET, doing the reporting in Transact SQL

1999-2001

Menta

Telecom Specialist

Field installer and maintenance technician of a Catalan telecom fiber channel provider